Svobodný software

Linus Torvalds merged the code this weekend that allows easily replacing the Tux penguin boot logo used during the boot process. This new code optionally allows specifying an alternative boot logo at compile/build time...

The open-source Linux file-system driver for supporting Microsoft's exFAT now can deliver better sequential read performance with Linux 7.0 thanks to multi-cluster support...

Version 0.20 of the popular wlroots Wayland support library is nearing its official release. Over the past week were two release candidates for wlroots 0.20 were published for this library used by Sway, Wayfire, Cage, Gamescope, and numerous other Wayland compositors...

A patch series sent out for review this weekend can significantly improve the system hibernation performance under Linux. Particularly for those with slower SSDs, the patches can make Linux hibernate up to several times faster...

Announced last year by consulting firm LunarG was KosmicKrisp as a Vulkan-on-Metal driver for efficiently leveraging the Vulkan API on Apple macOS systems as an alternative to the MoltenVK project. KosmicKrisp was upstreamed for Mesa 26.0 and continues making great progress for opening up more Vulkan possibilities in Apple's world...

The NFS server changes for Linux 7.0 happen to include some nice improvements for this big kernel version number release...

The power sequencing subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 cycle. Typically not an area of the kernel too exciting but one new driver addition is the "pwrseq-pcie-m2" to provide power sequencing for PCIe M.2 connectors...

The Flash Friendly File-System (F2FS) has multiple performance improvements to provide its users with on the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel...

This Valentine's Day there is a lot of red on the screen for the X.Org Server with the code delta as a result of renaming of their main Git development branch and in the process selectively dropping questionable patches to the prior "master" codebase...

Vim 9.2 is out today as the newest feature release for this robust and comprehensive text editor. This Valentine's Day release for Vim lovers brings experimental Wayland support, XDG Base Directory specification support, modernized defaults for HiDPI displays, new completion features, and an improved diff mode...

The HID subsystem changes were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.0 kernel merge window. Among the Human Interface Devices (HID) work this cycle were supporting more guitars while also adding more device IDs and different laptop quirks...

Following Intel recently discontinuing a number of open-source projects, this week they formally discontinued their Quantum Passes open-source project that was intended to provide additional passes for their LLVM-based compiler in the Intel Quantum SDK...

In addition to this week's GNOME 50 beta release, there were also other exciting developments in the GNOME ecosystem...

Beyond all of the exciting Intel/AMD x86_64 changes and improvements to enjoy with the upcoming Linux 7.0, there is one notable ARM64 feature addition this kernel cycle...

The Linux Memory Technology Device (MTD) subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 kernel and include introducing Octal DTR "8D-8D-8D" support in SPI NAND for better performance...

For those that may be considering the new ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3406GA) laptop that has been refreshed for the new AMD Ryzen AI 400 series, Cirrus Logic has now upstreamed the necessary firmware for the cs35l41 audio amplifier for working speaker support...

KDE's Plasma 6.6 desktop release is due out next week (17 February) and there's been some last minute fixes to land. Additionally, KDE Plasma developers continue to be quite active in already landing feature work for Plasma 6.7...

One of the latest exciting developments for the open-source Godot game engine is beginning to lay out support for Vulkan ray-tracing...

The GNOME 50 beta release is now available ahead of the official GNOME 50 desktop due out in March...

One of the latest NVIDIA open-source contributions this week wasn't for the in-development Nova kernel driver but for enhancing the existing Nouveau kernel driver. The patch posted is for bringing up the NVIDIA GA100 GPU under Nouveau using the GPU System Processor (GSP)...